Thoughts from a (girl) Gamer

Alright, so this was a really fun project. Here is how to make your own Silent Hill Nurse costume for cheap and with no sewing. Jump to the end for pictures of the whole process.

The first step is to go pick up the things you will need:

A “sexy” nurse costume – I bought one of the Leg Avenue costumes
A simple mask
Paint for the mask
Old make up, like eye shadow and foundation
Panty house
Shoes your willing to rough up
soy sauce
flour
newspaper

At the very bottom there is a photo gallery, click on each picture for a larger image and a visual record of making my costume!

Making the nurse dress and hat:

Take the nurse costume and soak it in a mixture of black tea and coffee.  I soaked mine in a giant pot for like a half hour.

Once it is done, hang it somewhere to dry. I hung mine up in my bathroom above the tub. As the costume dries, flick some water on it. This will create discolored spots. Only flick water on it. I mean small amounts.

Now because of the materials that costumes are made out of (you know, the kind of shiny material – maybe it’s polyester?) you can’t wash this, or get it wet. If you do, the color will run right out of it. That’s why you can only use flicks of water, don’t do any more than that.

Once the costume is dry, go through your old make up. You will be using this to dirty up the dress. I used old foundation, blush that was too dark for me, and eye shadows I was never going to use.

For powdered make up, scrape it with a fork or tweezers or something else, just to make it loose. Then spread it across the costume with just your hand or paper towel, working it into the fabric. For liquid make up just drip it on the cloth where ever you see fit, once again smearing it in .

Repeat this process for the front and back, including the hat that comes with the costume.

Now this part is going to sound a little weird, but trust me. Put the costume on some sort of incline, or you may want to hang it up. The take soy sauce a drip it on the costume. Let is run down naturally, and then dab off any extra that doesn’t soak into the costume. This gives the look of old, dried blood really nicely.

Once the make up and soy sauce have dried, take a pair of scissors and fray and rough up all of the edges of the costume.

Yay! The dress portion of your costume is now done!

The Mask

The mask really was a learning experience for me. I had no clue what I was doing when I started. It was still fun though.

Start by getting everything ready to paper mache. I would lay down some newspaper or trash bag to protect your surface. This can get messy. Once your area is set up, tear newspaper into strips, no more than an inch wide, and some pieces being smaller than that. For the paste mix I used a simple two part water to one part flour mixed that worked quite well.

You will need at least 3 layers of paper mache, so this will take some time. For the first layer, dip the newspaper in the glue mix and shake of any extra glue. Lay it across the mask. Repeat this process until the entire mask is covered. Once you’re done, let is dry. This can take up to 24 hours.

This is where things start getting hard. You have to get a idea of what you want your mask to look like now. I didn’t really do that, and as you can tell from the pictures. Mine sort of evolved over time. IF you already know what you want your mask to look like you would start laying down the ground work here on the second layer.

The one thing I can tell you is to get texture, it’s a nice idea to pinch together or lump newspaper where you want higher or raised portions now. It doesn’t matter how it looks, because you can smooth it out by adding paper on top of it with the next layer.

So, just keep repeating the add paper mache – let it dry sequence until you have something you like.

Once that is done you paint it. I just used some normal paint for crafts, acrylic paint. Now, my mask turned out really dark. I tried to paint it once with lighter colors, which are more accurate to the reference I was using, but looked horrible. I am not a painter by any means. I decided on going with a dark mask, not because it was accurate, but it looked better and was easier to do with my painting skills. Feel free to paint it whatever colors you see fit. It is your mask after all.

Now, Silent Hill nurses don’t have eyes. I do. To make my eyes little harder to see I hot glued panty hose on the inside of my mask over the eye holes. Simply cut a square piece of panty hose, stretch it, and hot glue it in place.

Now you’re mask is done.

Shoes:

Now shoes are really up to you. The nurses in the movie and Silent Hill: Homecoming both wear heels, which is what I chose to go with. I didn’t have a pair of white heels so I just spray painted a pair of black ones white. I then used a left over paint from the mask to rough them up a bit.

Make-up:

Now I haven’t done a full costume run yet. That means including make up. The nurses are covered with veins. I plan to have them all over my body, including legs.

Wanna see how I looked in my costume? You can do so here!

Hope you enjoy making your own costume!